Pronunciations (5)
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/stɹɔː/
Pronunciation notes
- UK
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/stɹɔ/
Pronunciation notes
- US
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/stɹɑ/
Pronunciation notes
- cot-caught-merger
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stɹɔː
Pronunciation notes
- GB
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stɹɔ
Pronunciation notes
- US
Noun
A dried stalk of a cereal plant.
Usage- Countable
Such dried stalks considered collectively; this bulk matter may be a chief salable product, a by-product, fodder, bedding, or green manure, depending on region and on current market conditions.
Usage- Uncountable
A drinking straw.
Usage- Countable
A pale, yellowish beige colour, like that of a dried straw.
Usage- Countable
- Uncommon
- Uncountable
Anything proverbially worthless; the least possible thing.
Usage- Countable
- Figurative
- Uncountable
- in the negative
- Examples
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to not care a straw
‘For thy sword and thy bow I care not a straw, Nor all thine arrows to boot; If I get a knop upon thy bare scop, Thou canst as well shite as shoote.’
More examples (2)
He also decided, which was more to his purpose, that Eleanor did not care a straw for him, and that very probably she did care a straw for his rival.
To be deeply interested in the accidents of our existence, to enjoy keenly the mixed texture of human experience, rather leads a man to disregard precautions, and risk his neck against a straw.
A straw owner.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Examples
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More examples (1)
The Bromfield Street offices were housed in a dilapidated but heavily-insured building, owned by a straw for a wealthy downtown real estate developer, surrounded by expensive new commercial developments, and in a city renowned for arson-for-profit.
Adjective
Made of straw.
Usage- not-comparable
- Synonyms
- Examples
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straw hat
Of a pale, yellowish beige colour, like that of a dried straw.
Usage- not-comparable
Imaginary, but presented as real.
Usage- Figurative
- not-comparable
- Examples
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A straw enemy built up in the media to seem like a real threat, which then collapses like a balloon.
[Y]ou again seem to be building some straw house to pretend the bible does not speak quite clearly against homosexuality being "not natural" […]
Verb
To scatter or to spread loosely.
Usage- idiomatic
- Transitive
To lay straw around plants to protect them from frost.
Usage- Transitive
To sell straws on the streets in order to cover the giving to the purchaser of things usually banned, such as pornography.
Usage- Obsolete
- Slang
- Examples
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More examples (3)
It was the custom for the disaffected of those days to make known their grievances by distributing papers on doors of public buildings, and even strawing them in the high way, for the benefit of the chance passenger.
I have already alluded to "strawing," which can hardly be described as quackery. It is rather a piece of mountebankery. […] The strawer offers to sell any passer by in the streets a straw and give the purchaser a paper which he dares not sell. Accordingly as he judges of the character of his audience, so he intimates that the paper is political, libellous, irreligious, or indecent.
Forasmoche as there be diverse lewd and sedicious [folks] personnes [being so given to sedicon as they care not f] whiche do labor nowe to mayntain the traitorous doings of the duke of Somerset, and for that purposed do ivise the most vile false and traitorous bills, papers, and boks that ever were harde off, strawing the same in the stretes, aswel within the Citie of London [and] as in diverse [other] townes and other places in the cuntrey; wherein they do falsly and traitorously travail to slaunder the kings mat Counsail, thinking therby to amase and abuse his Mat good subgietts, which be in a redynes to joyne with the said counsail for the delyverey of the king our soveraign Lords most Royal person, remayning to his great peril and damage in the said dukes custody, and for the restoring of this noble Realme to some better order and quietnes, whiche shalbe the benefite [of every man] of us all universally;
Townspeople who saw 'strawing' and 'following the wran' as invasions by 'lusty young men of the country' saw Volunteer events in the same way.
Adjective
of a pale yellow color like straw; straw-colored
Noun
plant fiber used e.g. for making baskets and hats or as fodder
- Broader terms
material consisting of seed coverings and small pieces of stem or leaves that have been separated from the seeds
- Broader terms
a variable yellow tint; dull yellow, often diluted with white
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
a thin paper or plastic tube used to suck liquids into the mouth
- Synonyms
Verb
cover or provide with or as if with straw
- Broader terms
- Examples
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cows were strawed to weather the snowstorm
spread by scattering (‘straw’ is archaic)
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
- Examples
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strew toys all over the carpet